It’s that time of year again. The latest Shopify Editions has dropped - and with it, we’ve seen the emergence of the first true vibe-ready dev platform. What’s in store for your ecommerce brand? Let’s dive in…
TL;DR
You’re busy, we’re busy. We get it. So, we’re not going to cover all 150 updates in this edition.
Here’s the too long; didn’t read:
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Shopify has fully-embraced vibe coding (the coding phrase du jour). Describe what you want in natural language, and Shopify’s embedded AI will write the formal code for you. Smart.
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Sidekick is here. It’s your AI assistant that acts as a true business partner. It’s capable of multistep reasoning, visual generation, mobile support, voice chat and more.
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It’s all coming together with multi-entity retail. You can now manage multiple business entities from a single admin.
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Shopify may have embraced vibe coding, but it’s also gone a little bit corporate with a host of new B2B features and capabilities, including improved ERP support, and company-specific pricing.
Those are the key takeaways from the latest Shopify Editions, but below we’ve explored it in more depth around three main angles; e-commerce, B2B, and performance marketing.
E-commerce: AI takes centre stage for growth
“AI takes centre stage in Shopify Editions Summer 2025, making a turning point for D2C brands. From theme generation to personalised storefronts and AI-powered assistants, Shopify is embedding intelligence into every layer of the e-commerce experience. These new capabilities allows brands to move faster, test more, and unlock deeper personalisation - all while creating new opportunities for strategic and creative collaboration with partners like Velstar.”
Matt Donnelly, Senior Content Manager and AI Steering Committee Lead, Velstar.
So, what does the latest Shopify Editions bring from an e-commerce, direct-to-consumer (D2C) perspective?
As you’d perhaps expect, AI takes centre stage. Let’s take a look at the key developments:
Hyper-personalised storefronts and Horizon themes
This is big. Really big. Shopify’s new Horizon themes allow e-commerce brands to rapidly refresh their online presence. Describe your brand, your vibe, your aesthetic, and Shopify’s AI will generate a complete theme layout, including content.
“Shopify themes have been around for years, though. What’s so special about these Horizon themes?” we can hear many of you ask. And, it’s a good question.
In short, the Horizon themes differ from themes of old due to their underlying architecture and AI-integration. These are truly AI-powered themes.
Here are some of the key features that define Horizon themes compared to their non-AI brethren:
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Horizon themes are fully modular, utilising a ‘theme block’ system that allows for multiple levels of nested blocks up to eight levels deep. This provides unprecedented granular control over content design and placement on every page (not just the home page!). Perhaps the key point here is that store owners can combine and rearrange elements like images, videos, product information and text freely, without the need to code.
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If you haven’t got the message so far, the Horizon themes feature deep AI integration. The entire Horizon framework is built with AI in mind, allowing changes to be made using natural language prompts rather than coding.
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More than any prior Shopify theme, the Horizon themes are built for speed. They have been designed from the ground-up to score ‘green’ on Google’s Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, and CLS).
Ultimately, the use of AI will allow e-commerce store owners to embrace vibe coding and rapidly A/B test different themes and layouts to increase conversions and revenue, with drastically reduced need for developer input.
Upgraded Sidekick AI assistant
Shopify’s Sidekick assistant has had an infusion of AI power. Capable of multistep reasoning, Sidekick can help store owners like you analyse performance (e.g. “Why are my sales down?”) with a mere prompt or two.
AI-powered chatbots are here
Tired of those generic, rote chatbots that you see on many websites these days? Well, Shopify is changing the game, utilising the power of natural language processing (NLP) to let store owners like you create customised, personalised AI chatbots to serve your customers 24/7.
Of crucial importance are the Shopify Storefront MCP (Model Context Protocol) and Shopify Catalog for AI. The first of these allows developers to build AI agents that can access catalogues, customer accounts (for order lookup), and store policies. As we’ve written recently, Agentic AI could be HUGE for e-commerce brands.
The latter of these developments - Shopify Catalog for AI - enables AI shopping agents to discover and showcase your products to potential customers using conversational AI platforms. With Google and others announcing exciting breakthroughs in agentic capabilities, this could soon be a non-negotiable feature for e-commerce websites.
Streamlined global expansion
Thanks to simplified Shopify Markets, multi-entity retail setups, and enhanced payments and fulfilment features, this latest Shopify Editions makes it easier than ever to take your brand global. One admin, multi-region stores. Easy!
Shopify Editions: unleashing next-gen B2B commerce
“Shopify is no longer just flirting with B2B - the Summer 2025 Editions demonstrates it’s serious about serving wholesale and enterprise merchants. With new features like multi-catalogue flexibility, improved ERP integration a nd centralised global management, Shopify is beginning to offer the robust infrastructure complex B2B operations demand.”
Mark Pickering, Group Operations Director, Velstar.
Shopify has traditionally been pigeonholed as a platform solely for e-commerce, D2C brands. But, the Canadian tech giant is keen to change this - and Shopify Editions: Summer 2025 shows they are making huge progress into the B2B space.
Enhanced B2B markets and multi-catalogue management
B2B store owners will now be able to create multiple B2B markets - with each market having its own unique product catalogues, pricing, currency, and customised online storefront themes.
Want to serve different buyer groups and offer more personalised experiences? Then Shopify now has you covered.
The ability to create multi-catalogues also allows merchants like you to ensure that specific B2B customers see only the relevant products and pricing tailored to their agreements.
Improved ERP integration
An area where Shopify has traditionally struggled, this latest Editions sees vastly improved ERP integration with enhanced connectors for major ERP systems like NetSuite. Smoother data synchronisations for orders, inventory, and invoices are expected to be the result.
This is a development that the Velstar Enterprise team is particularly keen to see. However, given how complex ERP integrations can be - especially at scale - the proof will be very much in the pudding.
Centralised international management
This latest Shopify Editions also looks at B2B from an international angle, with the introduction of centralised international management. One of the most interesting features is the ability to introduce zone-specific rules, e.g. different VAT regulations for intra-EU vs UK etc.
This is likely to be a godsend for B2B brands that are branching out into more international territories.
Multi-entity retail setups
Related to the development above, this latest Editions introduces the ability for large B2B enterprises to manage multiple legal entities from a single Shopify store, even across different countries. As you can imagine, this will significantly simplify compliance and financial operations whilst also consolidating reporting.
Advanced storefront customisation
With the power of AI, B2B users will now be able to deeply customise their storefronts, tailoring the theme, language and currency (not to say the overall buyer experience) for each B2B market.
Ultimately, this latest Shopify Editions resembles a step-change for Shopify as a B2B platform. With more native tools to manage complex wholesale relationships, the ability to scale globally, and the scope to provide highly tailored, market-specific experiences, Shopify is becoming the B2B platform par excellence.
AI-powered marketing unleashed for growth
“For performance marketers focused on paid media, the Summer 2025 Editions introduces a suite of AI-powered tools designed to maximise campaign impact. From AI-generated landing pages and ad copy to centralised campaign dashboards and first-party data integrations, Shopify is reducing the friction between insight and execution. At Velstar, we’re already speaking with clients to embed these features into their media strategies - helping them improve ROI, reduce creative turnaround times and stay competitive in an increasingly automated ad landscape.”
Ben Cowie, Paid Media Director, Velstar.
From a performance marketing perspective, Shopify Editions Summer 2025 is a veritable smorgasbord of features that can be wielded by marketing professionals to drive growth for their stores.
AI-driven content generation
Pressed for time? Need to create a landing page for a PPC campaign asap? Then you’ll be pleased to hear that Shopify has taken AI-powered content generation to the next level. Shopify Magic is being boosted with a more powerful model, making its product description, ad copy, and other generation capabilities even more impressive.
Centralised campaigns tool
This powerful new dashboard allows growth marketers to track and optimise their campaigns directly from the Shopify dashboard, collating data and insights into a single location and reducing the need to log in to multiple data sources.
Campaigns also allows you to generate QR codes, shareable links and even UTM codes directly within the admin. Perfect!
The Collabs app
One of the most potentially exciting features to emerge from the latest Editions is the Collabs app.
The Collab app is set to supercharge brand collaborations with content creators. The app will provide content creators with the ability to find and form collaborations with brands and get detailed sales analytics, payment updates and better product discovery.
This is going to make life far easier for influencers/content creators and brands alike!
CRO enhancements
Given that conversion rates are a perennial headache for performance marketers, it’s pleasing to see this latest Shopify Editions announcing a slew of conversion rate optimisation (CRO) enhancements.
Most notable amongst these is a serious boost in checkout speed - with cart load speeds improved by 50% and payment button speeds enhanced by 59%.
As an aside, Shopify has announced the ability to provide store credit refunds - retaining revenue and encouraging future, repeat purchases.
Velstar: the Shopify Premier Partner of choice
We appreciate this has been something of a whistle-stop tour of the Shopify Editions, Summer 2025 - but as you’ve just read - it’s packed full of features that increasingly make Shopify the platform of choice for the biggest e-commerce and B2B brands.
Want to join those brands and migrate to Shopify? Then speak to Velstar, the Shopify Premier Partner of choice today.
